Speed at press of button here to stay, IndyCar's Briscoe says

After helping produce the second-fastest race and 11th-closest finish in IndyCar history, "push to pass" will return in Sunday's Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

But even if not for a smashing debut at Kentucky Speedway, the overtake assist button, which provides an extra 200 rpm so engines can rev to 10,500, is here to stay, points leader Ryan Briscoe said.

"I think it's the future of racing," said Briscoe, who retook first in the championship race by eight points over Scott Dixon after nipping Ed Carpenter by 0.0162 seconds at Kentucky for his second win this season.

"In the past you didn't need it because there was so much more inconsistency in performance between cars," he said. "Now the cars are so equally tuned that we need tools to spice up the races and create performance differences."

After being allowed 20 button pushes for 12-second bursts at Kentucky, drivers will receive 15 pushes of 20 seconds apiece at Mid-Ohio.

Briscoe said "push to pass" could be a deciding factor on the road course, where acceleration is more important than on a 1.5-mile oval such as Kentucky.

"We will be able to pull each gear to 10,500 rpm, and there'll be a significant performance gain from the engine," Briscoe said.

Shifting gears:

After dominating the GTS and GT1 classes with eight consecutive titles, Corvette will return to the American Le Mans Series for the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio in the GT2 division. The redesigned C6.R, whose dimensions are virtually identical to its ZR1 production counterpart, will compete vs. teams representing Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Viper, Panoz and Ford over the last five races of 2009.

"There was very little competition on a global basis to race in existing GT1," said Doug Fehan, Corvette Racing program manager. "We're going to find some amazing competition. You get seven or eight global manufacturers competing ... it's going to make for exciting racing."

Pit notes:

Lowe's confirmed its naming rights sponsorship of Lowe's Motor Speedway won't be renewed after the 2009 season. ... Dean Wilson (450A/Pro Sport), Justin Weeks (450A), Blake Baggett (250A/ Pro Sport) and Taylor Futrell (250A) were among the class leaders in the 28th annual Air Nautiques/AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships at the Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. The event ends Saturday.